


Hang Up Your Hairshirt

by predilection



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/predilection/pseuds/predilection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur confesses to Gaius the circumstances surrounding his father's death.</p><p>(Companion piece to "The Wicked Day".)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hang Up Your Hairshirt

**Author's Note:**

> This is an episode tag to season 4 episode 3 ("The Wicked Day"), because it frustrated me and I wanted a fix-it. Basically, I think that reinforcing Arthur's distrust in magic this far into the series was a really bad idea. 
> 
> Please note: This fic deals with Uther's death and the topic of grief.
> 
> This fic is unbetaed so any mistakes are my own.

It was quite late by the time Gaius made it back to his chambers after the dinner that celebrated Arthur's coronation. The festivities had been grand, but they had a somber undercurrent to them: Arthur was king, but Uther was dead. For all his faults (and there were many), Uther had been Gaius's friend and Gaius felt his loss deep in his bones.

Gaius was planning on retiring for the night when he opened his door and discovered Arthur slouched in a chair by his workbench. Arthur had changed out of his robes into simpler fare and he looked exhausted, dark circles taking on a purplish tint under his eyes. "Gaius."

"Is something the matter, sire?" Gaius asked, carefully shutting his door behind him and approaching his new king.

"Sit, please." Arthur gestured to the chair across from him, and slowly, Gaius crossed the room and took a seat. Once he was settled, Arthur said, "I've always hoped to be a good king -- to be a king that makes my people and my father proud -- but I feel... as if I have already failed."

"You have just begun," Gaius pointed out, not entirely sure what had prompted Arthur to come to his chambers at this time of night to tell him this, but sure that whatever it was was weighing on him a great deal. "I understand that the pressure on you is great, but--"

"Gaius." Arthur cut him off with a wave of his hand. "I've come to confess."

"Confess, sire?"

"I have done something unforgivable and for me to be a good king, an honest king... I need to tell someone," he explained.

"Alright," Gaius said, "but I am the Court Physician. Are there not others more suited to hear your confession?"

On the tabletop, Arthur laced his fingers together. "For as long as I've lived, you've been my father's most trusted advisor. You knew him well."

Gaius nodded. "What troubles you, sire?"

Arthur was silent for a long time. He stared down at his hands and took several deep breaths before finally saying, "I killed my father."

Gaius sat up straighter in his chair.

"I wanted to save him. I was willing to do anything, Gaius. I even... consorted with a sorcerer." Arthur hung his head in shame. 

It hurt Gaius to witness Arthur in so much pain. He chose his next words carefully. "No matter what happened -- what magic may or may not have been involved, your father's time was coming."

Arthur unlaced his fingers and slammed his palms down on the table top. "Gaius, did you not hear me? I just confessed to... to..."

"I helped you find that sorcerer," Gaius pointed out.

"But you couldn't know I would..." 

"Tell me what happened," Gaius prompted gently.

Arthur told him what Gaius already knew, but this time he heard the tale with Arthur's guilt overlaying it instead of Merlin's.

"You see," Arthur said, "I snuck a sorcerer into the castle. I let him perform magic on my father, and because I was so foolish -- because I failed to heed the warnings my father gave me time and time again -- I saw my father die in front of my very eyes."

Gaius considered this. "You say this sorcerer made you promise to repeal the ban on magic?"

"Yes," Arthur replied, "but what does that have to do with anything?"

Gaius tilted his head to the side. "Well, there are many who dream of the day that magic will return to this kingdom. Why would a sorcerer who wishes for such a future deliberately kill Uther, thus reneging on your agreement?"

"He was a sorcerer, Gaius," Arthur said angrily. "They are not to be trusted. Perhaps the temptation to kill my father was so great that..." he trailed off and ran a hand over his face. "I let him in, Gaius. I gave him access to my father."

"Perhaps," Gaius agreed. "Or perhaps other forces were afoot."

"Other forces? What do you mean by that?"

Gaius stood and crossed the room to retrieve a folded bit of cloth. He returned with it and set it down on the table between himself and Arthur. "I was not going to bother you with this until tomorrow," Gaius said, although until this moment, he was not planning to show Arthur it at all. He unwrapped the cloth revealing the necklace he had found around Uther's neck and held it out for Arthur to see. "Your father was wearing this pendant when he passed. In all my years of tending to him, I had never seen it before so it struck me as strange for him to be wearing it in death. Do you recognise it?"

Arthur picked it up by its chain and held the pendant up to a candle. "No, I've never seen it either."

Gaius nodded. "I found it suspicious, so I confiscated it for study." If Arthur thought it inappropriate that Gaius took jewelry from his father's body, he said nothing.

"What did you find?" Arthur asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," Gaius admitted and he reached for a leather-bound book on the table. He ruffled through its pages until he found what he was looking for and then turned the book around for Arthur to see. A sigil drawn on the top of the page was almost identical to the pendant at the end of the chain Arthur was still holding.

"It's magic?" Arthur asked, surprised, quickly dropping the necklace onto the tabletop.

"I'm afraid so."

Arthur leaned forward in his chair to get a closer look at the book. "What does it do?" 

"It's contains a powerful spell that reverses the intention of the magic performed on a person and intensifies its effects."

Arthur frowned. "What does that mean?"

Gaius put the book down. "You said you brought a sorcerer into the castle and that he casted a spell to save Uther's life. Uther was wearing this necklace at the time. Thus, I surmise that your attempt would have been successful had he not been wearing it."

Arthur leaned back in his chair and stared into space for a moment. "Do you think the sorcerer put the necklace on him so that the spell would go wrong?"

"Sire," Gaius said. "If I may speak frankly, I think that if that sorcerer had any interest in killing your father, he would not have needed to go through this much trouble to do so."

"When did the necklace appear? When did my father start wearing it?" Arthur wanted to know.

"I asked Guinevere and she said she saw it for the first time only a day before his passing." 

"Who could've placed such an item on my father's person?"

"I don't know, sire," Gaius admitted, though he kept quiet about his suspicions regarding Morgana's involvement. "His chambers were highly guarded and his visitors tightly monitored."

"So you're saying that... someone sabotaged my attempt to use magic to save my father, but... who would even suspect such a thing?"

"It may have been placed on his person simply to ensure than any magical remedies, if attempted at all, would lead to his demise. To be killed by healing magic -- your father had many enemies who would have seen this as a poetic form of justice."

Arthur closed his eyes and released a breath that sounded like a sob, but when he spoke, his voice was clear. "You're suggesting that my father was murdered by a sorcerer but not by the one I let into the castle."

"That is what the evidence would suggest."

Arthur rubbed his forehead. "I don't know if I want to believe what you're evidence is suggesting, Gaius." 

"I understand, sire." This was a lot to take in, Arthur was under enough stress as it was, and he doubted Arthur wished to begin his reign with a witch hunt. 

Arthur stood and began to pace. Gaius watched him with concern and said, "Regardless of what you come to believe, may I suggest that, at the least, you recognise that you are not the one responsible for your father's passing. Even if magic was involved, the spell you had that sorcerer cast does not appear to be at fault. You most certainly did _not_ kill him."

Arthur grabbed his own head in both his hands and tangled his fingers through his hair. His face crumpled into a picture of misery and Gaius could tell from the way his expression contorted that he was trying hard not to cry.

"My father is still dead," Arthur said. "Magic still killed him. If what you're saying is true, then I still had a hand in it. I still..."

Knowing it wasn't the proper course of action but feeling that it was the right thing to do, Gaius stood and walked over to Arthur. He placed a hand on Arthur's shoulder and tugged on it gently until Arthur turned to face him. Then he pulled Arthur forward until he could wrap his arms around him.

Arthur was rigid in his arms, but he let his forehead fall onto Gaius's shoulder and let Gaius hold him as he sobbed quietly.

"You are not to blame for this, Arthur," Gaius whispered to him and he could feel the fine tremors that Arthur shook with. 

For minutes they did not move, did not speak, until Arthur pulled away, turned around and swiped at the tears on his face. He pulled at the bottom of his shirt, adjusting it and then stood up straight, his back still to Gaius, his hands at his sides.

"Thank you for hearing my confession," he said, and Gaius could hear him struggling to keep the emotion from his voice.

"You're always welcome, sire," Gaius said and he watched silently as his king walked to his door.

Arthur paused in the doorway and looked over his shoulder. He offered Gaius a weak smile and then he was gone.

Gaius took a deep breath, looked upwards towards the heavens and wiped his own tears from his face.


End file.
